Pastor Mike’s Garage December 1st, 2022
December 1, 2022
Well, the weather outside is frightful, but inside it’s so delightful; and
we’ve really no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! I love
the simplicity of the old Christmas carols. They remind us of a simpler
time when the average person actually really had no place that was that
pressing that they had to head out in snowy weather. In this current day
and age life seems so busy that the added pressure of inclement weather ads
to the stress of our busy day!
This will be a full weekend of activity at the church. Saturday morning
starting at 8:30 we are having a men’s breakfast open to guys of all ages.
If your old enough to eat bacon and pancakes your welcome to come! Bring
your son, bring your dad, bring your grandpa! On Sunday morning we will be
having a special guest named Bev Foster come and join us who will be
leading our service with song and sharing. We are going to start the
morning with muffins and coffee at 9:30.
As I’ve been thinking and planning the men’s breakfast for this coming Sat
my thoughts have centered around being a father. Unless I am unknowingly
sending this message to a cryogenically created test-tube baby clone in our
midst, I’m pretty sure the vast majority of us have a father! Many of us
have a son! Now, none of us had a perfect father, none of us are a perfect
one either! There is something very powerful and special about becoming a
father. There is a deep impact within each of us, for good or bad, through
the relationship we had with our father. We are also caught in an epic
battle between two spiritual fathers! One, the god of this world, is called
the father of lies, whose sole goal and intent for each of us is to steel,
kill, and destroy our life! The other, our heavenly Father, the creator,
who came in human form that we may have life to the full! It’s hard to
describe or explain but the moment I saw Ben for the first time in that
delivery room, something changed in me! I think I got a small glimpse of
how much our heavenly Father loves each of us and can be so proud of us
even in our weakness and frailty! I had the best of intentions to be the
best father I could for him, I still do. Your gonna have to trust me on
this, but I fall far short of the perfect model of a father my son needs!
None of us wake up in the morning with the thought, “today, I’m gonna be a
bad dad!”, but inevitably the craziness of life and our own brokenness lead
us to doing or saying things that no model father would! It’s a journey we
are all on. As I have aged, I have realized it was a journey my father was
on as well. It is that journey and tension that I want to pour into and
encourage for the men in our community this Sat, no matter the age!
We all have a heavenly Father who desperately loves us, wants the best for
us, and is proud of us! My son is not perfect, he can be stubborn,
disobedient, selfish, inconsiderate, and downright mean. Yet I love him
with all my heart, and am proud to be his father! I only had a minuscule
role in his creation. Imagine how much more our heavenly Father, who knew
us before the foundation of the world, numbers the hairs on our head, keeps
record of our tears, has a passionate love for each of us no matter how
broken we may be! Ben is my most prized possession, nothing else I have
acquired or achieved in life even comes close. With that in mind imagine
how precious you must be that our heavenly Father would be willing to give
up his own son’s life for you and I? As we celebrate this Christmas season
together, let us not lose focus on the reason He came, was born, lived,
suffered, and died. You are precious in His sight!
Pastor Mike